Taiwan Anti-Nuclear Protests May Derail $8.9 Billion Power Plant

Protesters do morning exercise after camping overnight outside the Taiwan presidential palace in Taipei on March 10, 2013. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Taiwan calling on the government to shut down the island's nuclear power plants. Photographer: Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Taiwanese protesting against the
completion of the island’s fourth nuclear power plant vowed to
continue their campaign after mustering more than 68,000 people
in weekend marches across major cities.

As Japan marks the second anniversary of the meltdown at
the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, Taiwan’s Longmen Nuclear Power
Plant, the NT$264 billion ($8.9 billion) project that state-run
Taiwan Power Co. is building, has drawn new criticism. The
company missed a deadline to start commercial operations at the
end of 2012.

“Nuclear power is toxic,” 87-year-old Wu Lien-mien, who
has spent her life in Gongliao, 25 miles east of Taipei, where
the plant is, said at the protests. “It is dangerous. I would
have come to protest even if I were 100.”

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou is caught between a pledge to
reduce carbon emissions to year-2000 levels by 2025 while also
phasing out nuclear power, which accounts for about a fifth of
Taiwan’s electricity. Opposition parties are against the
construction of nuclear reactors and Ma has supported calls to
put the issue to a referendum.

“We’ve heard Taiwanese people’s concerns and we’ll seek to
address their concerns in a neutral and unbiased manner,” said
Roger Lee, spokesman of Taiwan Power. “We’ll continue to
communicate with the public over the nuclear power plant.”

Radioactive Release

A magnitude-9 earthquake off Japan’s northeast coast on
March 11, 2011, and the tsunami that followed turned into what
then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan called the country’s worst crisis
since World War II. Water flooding into the Fukushima Dai-Ichi
station disrupted cooling mechanisms, causing radioactive
material to be released.

Japan and Taiwan lie on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area
bordering the Pacific Ocean that is tectonically active.

“We demand construction of the No. 4 nuclear power plant
to stop immediately and that Taiwan phase out the use of nuclear
power,” Jason Lin, a spokesman for the opposition Democratic
Progressive Party, said before the weekend protest. “After the
Fukushima crisis, people are awakened to the fact that nuclear
power isn’t safe.”

Taiwan’s three nuclear plants are near the ocean, and
geological fractures, or faults, under the island, also spur
concern that the area may be unsafe.

In September 1999, a temblor centered 150 kilometers (93
miles) southwest of Taipei killed about 2,500 people. In
December 2006, Taiwan Power halted its No. 3 nuclear power
station for inspection after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck
near southern Taiwan, killing at least two people.

Front Line

“The future of the plant should be decided by the people
on the front line,” said 57-year-old Wu Wen-tung, who owns a
home appliance store in Gongliao.

Taiwan Power had sought to start commercial operation at
the No. 4 nuclear power plant by the end of last year after at
least five delays since it first started design work in the
1980s. In July 1986, lawmakers demanded a halt to the project
following the Chernobyl disaster. It was reinstated in 1992,
only to be suspended in October 2000 when former President Chen
Shui-bian’s administration told Taiwan Power to stop work
because of opposition from residents.

The project restarted February 2001 after a court ruled
that Chen should have consulted lawmakers before making an
executive order.

Natural Gas

Taiwan’s government has said it intends to abandon atomic
energy as long as viable alternatives in terms of prices and
carbon reduction are found. This may mean greater use of natural
gas, a more expensive fuel.

Other than nuclear, the island derives 40 percent of its
power from coal, and 31 percent from gas, according to Taiwan
Power. Yang Feng-shuo, the director of energy studies at the
Taiwan Institute for Economic Studies, said March 4 that natural
gas power generation costs about NT$1 per kilowatt-hour more
than nuclear.

“If construction of the No. 4 nuclear power plant is
stopped, the feasible option to make up for the lost capacity
will be natural gas-fired power plants,” Yang said by phone.
“Coal projects have faced difficulties in passing environmental
protect impact assessment.”